"Wild's new recording of the Brahms F minor Sonata Op. 5, No. 3, is by far the best version currently available on disc," opined BBC Radio in their feature Building a CD Library. The other selections on this disc—including a live 1982 performance of the Paganini Variations—are equally praiseworthy.

"He digs into the [sonata's] opening movement's massive chords and dauntingly unidiomatic octave passages with a kind of galvanizing assurance that makes his 50-something counterparts on disc—such as Daniel Barenboim and Vladimir Ashkenazy—sound arthritic by comparison."—Classics Today

"A splendid Brahms recital which proves Earl Wild is still a lion among pianists…. Wild's return to the Paganini Variations … includes a pungently clipped way with the opening theme, a brilliantly fleet disposal of the contrary motion octaves of Variation 7 and a sardonic sense of the humour beneath Brahms' outlandish demands in the octave glissandi of Var. 13. The welling phrases of Var. 2 from Book 2 are boldly characterised and there is a dancing lightness to Var. 14."—Gramophone